It’s confirmed. Not Aamir Khan but Shah Rukh Khan will play astronaut Rakesh Sharma in the biopic Salute produced by Sidharth Roy Kapur and directed by Mahesh Mathai.
And the transition is, according to very reliable sources, “very smooth, stress-free and amicable”. Apparently Aamir personally met Shah Rukh Khan to tell him that the role is worth Shah Rukh’s while.
After deep discussions and long meetings with Siddharth Roy Kapur, Shah Rukh has been signed to play Rakesh Sharma.
Sources totally discard the other names thrown around for the part. “It was mentioned that Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh were approached and that they turned down the role. Not true at all. The role went straight from Aamir to Shah Rukh.”
Interestingly Salute is not Shah Rukh’s first brush with outer space and astronomy. He had played a NASA engineer in Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades. Little did he know that he would return to that milieu.
Salute to that.
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